


After Franco

by Tassledown



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Generally crappy history of human rights stuff, History of Spain, M/M, Multi, Multishipping, Problems with Dictators, References To:, Spain's crappy history of human rights, Torture, WWII, bad friends trio, not explicit, spamano - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Francisco Franco was the first boss Spain hated enough to fight - and probably the worst one he could have chosen to defy. After Franco's death, it feels a bit surreal to realize he can return to how things were before. </p><p>He's had a lot of time to think, and he's not as sure of how much of what he was before he wants to do again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Franco

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is me chewing on the knot of how shitty Spanish attitudes towards other people were prior to modern day and what might have actually convinced Antonio to not still adhere to moral beliefs he's had for most of the past millenium. As such, it briefly references a lot of rather unpleasant things, but not in great detail.

Antonio was staring at his feet resting up against the wall when the cell door opened. He tilted his head back to smile at the guard and then quickly upended himself.

“You're new,” he said. “What is it?”

“You're expected at the funeral,” the guard said. “I was told to bring you.”

“Funeral?” Antonio scanned his recent memory, but he'd been distracted following a boat going through Egypt.

_(Would Mohamed want a visit? He'd always been really friendly, it'd be nice to see him again. He made very good coffee and always had such nice jewellery. He should bring him a gift when he went –)_

“Hey!” the guard shouted. “Are you listening?”

“Of course I was.” Antonio stood up and brushed off his clothes as if that would help. “Whose funeral?”

“I thought you would know. Don't you always know everything?” The man took a step back, obviously unnerved, and Antonio picked up the wash of confusion and fear.

“Not everything,” Antonio said. “If I knew everything, do you think I'd be in here?”

_(“Why do you expect me to praise you for this?” Antonio laughed. “You assassinated my leaders in the middle of an economic depression so you could steal power, while my people starved at home!”_

_“You will see that I was right in time.”_

_Antonio punched him. He was surprised at the time by how satisfying it was; he'd never punched a boss before. He didn't get a second chance, though. Franco's guards dragged him back and his new boss promised to speak to him later_

_He never saw his face in person again.)_

“I thought you were a legend until someone told me to come get you.” The guard looked surprised at what he'd just said, then gestured firmly out the door. “What did you even get put in here for?”

“Being incorrigible,” Antonio said. He shrugged expansively and started walking. “What lucky bastard got the succession, then?”

“I thought you didn't know who had died.”

“I can't hear him anymore.” Antonio crossed himself slowly and smiled a little. “Lucky guess. Is it Juan Carlos? Back to a monarchy?”

“So I heard.”

_(Another Reconquista. Antonio paced the cell and felt his people starve as Franco's attempt to bring the economy back by cutting them off from the rest of the world drove them deeper into misery. A people already broken by years of war, and a continent tearing itself apart around them..._

_And all he could do was pace, back and forth, trapped by his own government with borders too solid for him to cross – too solid to even leave his cage._

_Franco didn't even know he'd trapped him like he had, but every time his guards asked Antonio's thoughts he gave them – and every time he got back fury and beatings._

_Maybe God was angry at him? It was at least something to think about that didn't turn into a list of the dead...)_

The guard started down the hallway and Antonio followed quietly.

“Have you ever met him?” the guard asked. “The new King.”

“No. I never really met Franco, either. I stayed with the Republican government until they lost.” He laughed. “I've been out of politics for a while, you could say.”

They slowed as the man stared at him. “Have you really been in there for thirty-five years?”

Antonio shook his head and looked down a hallway as they passed. “No. I visited other rooms, too. You know, to stretch my legs.”

The guard nodded and took the statement at face value. He stopped at the front desk and pointed him into a bathroom to change. Antonio took the clothing handed to him and did so.

_(It had been almost two years since he'd last been tortured, since Franco's health had apparently given him less interest in Antonio's refusal to capitulate and behave. It had become a battle of wills between them, and part of him was disappointed that it had ended with the mortality of his opponent.)_

The guard had a funny look on his face when Antonio came back out of the bathroom. Antonio raised an eyebrow at him.

“You look... different.”

Antonio smiled faintly. “It happens sometimes. Presentation does wonders.”

“Of course. Let me show you out. There's a car waiting to take you to the King; you'll be attending the funeral with him, and then I think he wants to speak to you privately.”

“I'd be happy to give him an audience.” Antonio followed him to the exit.

When the door opened, he flinched but didn't stop walking, even though he could not see. He blinked tears from his eyes and walked straight out to the car without stopping. The guard asked him abruptly if he was alright, and Antonio made some excuse and shut the car door before wiping his eyes.

_(He'd ripped his nails on the floor screaming. His body was aching all over as broken bones knit themselves back together, and skin had to wait for that to finish before it could repair. He let himself scream, because he had no other use for his throat._

_Somewhere in the screams, he'd started cursing God, then cursing himself._

_He deserved this. He knew he did. Penance was for sins you'd committed, and he had years of mortal sins to make up for. He'd made the mistake of not thinking other Nation's people had souls and he'd been wrong._

_He hadn't realized how wrong until his government expanded to include so many others and then tried to close itself off again. He'd taken their people and called them his own; now, losing them – the threat of losing them – felt like losing a limb. Gilbert had made that change years ago – almost four centuries now – and Antonio wished he could ask him if it had hurt this much for him.)_

“Sir, are you alright?”

Antonio blinked and smiled at the man sharing the backseat with him. “Yes, I'm fine. What is it?”

“You seem upset. Would you like something to wipe your face with?”

“A handkerchief would be nice, yes, thank you.” He smiled broadly again and accepted the one he was handed. He pressed it to his face and struggled not to start crying. “I'm sorry, it's been a very long time since I saw the sun. How far is it?”

“It will be about an hour sir. Would you like to read some paperwork the King wanted you to see? He'd like some idea of what position you're supposed to fulfill in the government.”

Antonio held out his hand for it and stared at it in his lap, unsure what he was going to do with it.

_(“Hey!” Gilbert laughed and draped his arm over his back. “When are you going to be done with that? God, man I want to do something fun.”_

_“I'm trying to be of use,” Antonio snorted and turned his head to kiss Gilbert on the lips. “Let me finish the report.”_

_“I know,” Gilbert stepped away from his back and pulled out the chair next to him to drop into it. “I just needed to get away for a while, you know.”_

_“Are you doing alright?” Antonio looked at him in concern, but as much as Gilbert looked like shit he couldn't just attribute it to the loss of his free-state within Germany. The German economy had never recovered after the Great War; Gilbert hadn't looked well in almost two decades now._

_“Yeah, of course I'm fine!” Gil leaned forward on his knees and laughed. “Worry about yourself! You're in the middle of a civil war, for God's sake!”_

_Antonio laughed self-consciously again. He shouldn't worry; nothing had killed Gilbert before.)_

He read the reports, because doing so required no conversation skills. As much as he read them, he looked out over his countryside. Sometimes he wound up staring until a certain work drifted out of sight, because it wasn't the same seeing something through his people's eyes as seeing it with his own.

The man in the back seat with him said nothing unless asked, even though whenever Antonio turned his way he found him staring. He started asking the man questions about the documents to fill the air.

He grew hoarse within a few minutes, his throat unused to the exercise. A water bottle was produced and Antonio drank from it and closed his eyes, swallowing back memories.

_(He'd tried to confess to himself, knowing it wasn't enough but he had nothing else to do._

_It wasn't pretty. Wasn't pleasant to analyze his own past. He'd never looked at his own actions so closely before, and what he found made him sick._

_It was easy to believe other people weren't important, being a Nation. If they weren't your own blood – your own religion – your allies – they didn't have souls. If they didn't have souls, there could be no sin. If there could be no sin, there was no right or wrong. Stripping away that justification left him feeling raw, like stripping off his skin._

_He could have stopped; could have refused to keep going, except he was the last of his friends – the last of a lot of Europe – to start down this road . Antonio felt ashamed of himself. He could see Lovino's anger at Empires more clearly, and he wondered if Lovino still loved him._

_If anyone cared about where he'd gone.)_

“How are our relations with Europe?” Antonio asked. His voice stayed even.

“Cautiously optimistic,” the man answered. “We've been aiding the United States against Russia, did you know that?”

“Yes,” Antonio said calmly. “I know a little.”

_(He'd laughed in their faces when they'd told him, because they thought it meant he might consider them more legitimate to be recognized at last by another Nation, taken back in by the new superpower that had thrust them out for their support of Germany in the war. He told them to shove it._

_It was just European politics as usual: to embrace an enemy just to say you had them on your side against another. No change at all, not in Europe._

_Not in Franco.)_

“Ah, yes. More specifically, um.” The man looked confused and finally selected something. “More recently, regarding the other states, there was the Berlin Agreement recognizing that East and West Germany are to be recognized as two separate states into the future – ”

“What?” Antonio turned to look at him. “There's two Germanies?”

“I – yes, there has been since the war. Did you not know?”

“Since the second world war?”

The man visibly drew himself together. “Yes. After – after the end of the war, the Soviet Union occupied the eastern half of Germany and of Berlin and did not give it up after the war. It has remained a separate state under their rule ever since, although both sides have argued that theirs should rule the entire country...”

His voice trailed off and Antonio looked away to hide his expression even though his heart was racing with hope. A second Germany. An eastern Germany. Gilbert had a country still. He couldn't be dead, not if he still had any part of his lands.

_(Antonio dragged Gilbert's body out of the harbour and turned him onto his side with a curse, slapping his back and shaking him until he coughed up the water filling his lungs and started to breath again. He waited only long enough to hear more breathing than coughing before he smacked him up the back of the head._

_“Idiot! I thought you knew better than that!”_

_Gilbert started laughing and turned onto his back, smiling up at him with his soaked hair stained orange across the temple where a healing scar arced back into his hair: the axe blow that had killed him before he was dumped._

_“I thought it'd be fun to give chase. I mean did you see her face? It was so worth it.”_

_Antonio knelt by his shoulder and jerked his head back. “I thought Hungary looked like a madwoman and had just sworn to kill you. Apparently she did it.”_

_“Yeah,” Gilbert's smile faded. “I'm sorry I made you worry.”_

_“Don't bother.” Antonio stood up and offered him a hand. “Just don't die on me.”)_

“And France?” Antonio whispered. “What about them?”

He could hear the disgust in the man's voice. “They are doing very well, economically, although they are weathering some problems. Their government is no more stable than they were early in the century and has continued to lean heavily towards liberalism and a rejection of traditional values.”

“So they haven't changed.” He leaned his head into the window of the car and exhaled slowly.

“Not really, no.” The man's voice was cautious. “Are you wondering about anyone else in particular?”

“No,” Antonio swallowed.

_(“How do you stand this?” Antonio growled. “The in-fighting – can you ever make it stop?”_

_“It is less stress if you give in fully to the idea, mon beau.” Francois said calmly. “But your people are very conflicted. You are in no position to ride it smoothly.”_

_“They're going to starve everyone to death! This is a terrible time to have civil war, not when the rest of Europe is bracing itself for war!”_

_“Ah, but you will be well out of it.” Francois stood up and wrapped his arms around his waist. He pressed his nose into the crook of his neck and sighed. “Civil War never happens at an opportune time, Antonio. Nobody wants to war with themselves. It only happens because something is seen as intolerable. You remember.”_

_“But it's not,” Antonio whispered. “Everything was fine. Rough, but fine. I don't want to go to war. I'm tired of it.”_

_Francois' arms tightened around him.)_

The car fell into silence again and Antonio tried to stop thinking. There was still a lot of the drive left. He glanced over the rest of the paperwork, but he wasn't seeing it, not really. If he could've gotten up to do it, he'd have Stepped from there to France or Germany, to where he remembered their homes had been, but it had been thirty years with a massive war in between. He had no idea if their homes were still standing.

America was the superpower now. Antonio closed his eyes and called to mind the boy's face, that stubborn set of his jaw. The willpower to defy England to his face and take his own independence from him when he was barely a century old.

The kind of stubborn face that reminded him of another.

_(“What, don't you like being home with your brother again?” Antonio teased._

_Lovino paced to the pantry and jerked out a slice of cheese half covered in wax. “Of course I'm happy to be home again! That doesn't mean anyone's eating enough! If you'd paid a little more attention I wouldn't be totally out of my depth, but no! You had to obsess over Mexico!”_

_“I know that did you no favours,” Antonio said. He stole the sausage off the cutting board and started chopping beside him. “Isn't Feliciano helping you?”_

_“Helping me? Have you paid any attention to what's going on here? He's got his hands full convincing Lombardy he's not going to kill her, don't be ridiculous!” He glowered at Antonio's hands, then up at his face. “Speaking of, you look like shit. Did Portugal beat your ass again?”_

_“No,” Antonio said. He sighed and leaned down to kiss him to stop him asking more. By the time he finished Lovino's eyes had gone unfocused and Antonio nipped his lip as he pulled away. “What wine do you want me to go get?”)_

His throat pinched as he remembered Italy had gotten involved in that war, too. Italy and Prussia and Germany – who was barely more than a child – and Japan. He really had no idea how that had ended, just that it had taken some of his people – some of Franco's opponents – and made them disappear.

His boss, using a war convulsing Europe as a way to dispose of dissidents he didn't feel like working to death on his own soil. Antonio started to sneer and then swallowed. He couldn't talk. It wasn't the first time he'd done it.

He'd agreed with it the last time it happened, when it wasn't Franco.

Did he have to truly hate his boss before he could see clearly? His throat ached and he desperately wanted to leave, to find someone – anyone – to talk to about this, but.

He had a funeral to go to, and a King to meet first. Then he could go back to work.

Back to his family.

**Author's Note:**

> For those slightly confused about what setting I'm implying here, it's that of Antonio having been kept in solitary confinement for the duration of the regime due to refusing to play nice with Franco and respect his authority.
> 
> Francoist Spain was a dictatorship from 1939 to 1975. It was nominally the Axis Power's ally, but, as mentioned above, in no shape to get into another war at the time. They did, however, send dissidents to concentration camps, but on a smaller scale than what they kept.
> 
> The oblique reference to Gilbert gaining morals about other people being human is also a personal concept, and probably happened around Brandenburg-Prussia in the 1500s (seeing as he obviously didn't have them with he was a Crusader either.)
> 
> Romano's comment about obsessing over Mexico is referring to how the Spanish Empire focused on development in their overseas territories and not in Southern Italy, leaving it far behind the North in terms of industrialization upon reunification.


End file.
